How dare NPR?
Out of curiosity I looked for other reporting on Kamala Harris’s denunciation of the leaked abortion ruling and oh gee guess what NPR carefully left out all but one of her mentions of women.
Vice President Harris on Tuesday blasted a leaked draft that indicated that the Supreme Court had voted to overturn the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade, declaring that “women’s rights in America are under attack.”
“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled,” she said.
NPR carefully did not quote:
Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women — well, we say, “How dare they?” How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?”
Way too fiery and feminist and angry, right? And way too not about trans people.
Politico on the other hand did not sanitize what she said.
It takes work to not say “woman”. It’s like writing about pets without using the word “cat”. Pretty soon it’s almost all about dogs, with the occasional, unavoidable use of “domesticated feline carnivore”. Cats are no longer talked about, they’re off the radar. Maybe there are actually no cats left anymore.
It’s not simple to come up with all the alternatives and circumlocutions. Somebody has decided that it is worth the effort. Here we have ideology embedded in style guides. Once you know what’s required, it does get a bit easier. Soon you’re censoring yourself and coercion is no longer required. For supporters of the ideology, it’s done willingly and enthusiastically from the get-go. It’s like policing pronouns on steroids. But the resulting stiltedness and absence of the verboten term makes it clear it is deliberate, the result of an actual directive and not just accidental oversight. A spot of paint on the window when you’re re-doing a room is an accident; painting the windows over completely is not.
*Not exactly like this; there’s no secretive, influential group of dogs that has shaped government and institutional policies with its belief that dogs can become cats, and that cats are required to accept this.
Are you sure about that? Every morning my puppy lets out a sound when he is ready to go out; it sounds suspiciously like “meow”. We think he has species dysphoria, though I suspect it might just be that he wants us to let him eat the cat food.
Yes, but is your dog part of a secretive, influential group that’s secretly influencing stuff behind the scenes? What with the meowing it sounds like he’s already blown his cover. Can a dog even keep a secret? What kind of mysterious cabal would allow itself to be compromised at the first offer of a yummy treat? Even if it is just cat food. Oh well. Every analogy has its limits; stretch it too far and it breaks. I’d be the first to admit that this one is pretty ridiculous and unconvincing. After all, everybody knows that the world is actually run by cats.